• Question: What happens if white bold cells died? Do we die?

    Asked by Alex0822 to Sian, Max, Lizzie, Francis, Ben on 6 Mar 2018. This question was also asked by anon-170057.
    • Photo: Francis Man

      Francis Man answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      We would lose much of our defenses against all sorts of microbes, they would grow very quickly inside the body and we wouldn’t survive very long.

    • Photo: Ben Mulhearn

      Ben Mulhearn answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      White blood cells are dying all the time, and are replaced by others from the bone marrow, which is like a factory for immune cells. Neutrophils in fact last no longer than 24 hours! But, as Francis said, if they all died at the same time we would be VERY susceptible to deadly infections, much like people who receive chemotherapy might be.

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